News Editor Erica Larson will join me on the Weird Horse News blog starting today! She’ll be bringing you those off-the-wall, weird horse stories that she runs into while searching for the latest horse health news for TheHorse.com.

Let’s face it. Most horses have a mischievous side to them. They are always looking for the chance to escape from their enclosures, be it a stall or a paddock. My own horse, Dorado, is living proof of this–having escaped from his pasture at his boarding barn twice last week while I was away on a business trip! Thankfully, and I’m sure much to the delight of the kind souls who were trying to catch him, he decided to surrender himself and was escorted back to his pasture all within a few minutes of hightailing it out the gate.

But the horse in this tantalizing tale was presented with the opportunity to escape his paddock when “a wandering emu” broke through the split rail fence, leaving the horse to wander three miles away from home. The owners discovered the bird occupying the horse’s pasture on the morning of Dec. 8 when they went out to check on their two horses É and the horse was nowhere to be found. Surprisingly, the second horse did not escape the confines of his enclosure. The equine escapee was safely returned to his pasture (albeit after a long walk!) by his owner.

The horses’ owners reported that the bird had been loitering around their farm for a few days and even tried to break into the horses’ run-in. The kicker here is that authorities don’t have a clue as to whom the emu belongs to